The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1887-02-05
boen doomed up beyond all reason.
Vacant ground, worth only $l5 per acre

boen doomed up beyond all reason
Vacant ground, worth only Sl5 per acr,
only twenty years ago, has latoly beef
sold In birmingham for $1,000 per foot
Five andBix hundred dollaIsp por foot isno
an uncommon price for vacant "buRlncal
lots" as they are called. Tho highes
price that ever knew for vacant prop
erty In your city was about $3.50 per foot
paid by Col. O,Brien, @. Hesa and others
ior the lot on Market street. And thai
same property sold ior q higher price
whom the Baltimore 4 Ohio road was ilrs
opened to Wheeling than 1t would bring
for many years af.erward. ThOre was Z
Birmingham boom in Wheeling in those
days, followed by collapse, just as there
will be In Alabama In tho sweet by and
by. The Birmingham speculator, however
does not believe this. He will tell you
that Wheeling, W. Va, Ia a finished town
while his town has all the possibilities ol
Pittsburgh or Chicago, and therefore he
persibts In discount!ng tho future at the
present rapid rate. Prices now are on
the basis Of 100000 inhabitants. l doub!
4 they will be materially higher when
that day arrives.
CATCHING TIE FEVER. ls
But ridiculous as $1,000 per foot may
seem TO you It does not sssm SO wild and
90 absurd to ms as the prices that have
,bsau set alost for property in several OF
the Alabama towns in different parts OF
the State; as for instance at Selma. Mont.
gomery, Tuscaloosa, Decatur, Florence
andSheiiisld. They hsvesll caught the Bir.
mingham fover, and started their land
companies md their booms. They all
wsnt to make some hay while the sun
shines. Towns that never doomed before
arc attempting to boom now. They have
organizsd nearly MI tho land around some
OF these places into pool and stocked it
OF six or Geven millions each and have
their nets spread for flies. All they want
Is plenty Of flies. -, E'9ll 3
These limitations OF Birmingham and 1t,
E!yton land company remind me OF the
cartoon l once saw in New York repre-
senting Jim Fisk with O bucket and a
syringe watering the Erie road in imita.
tion and rivalry with Commodore Wander
biltwho had a hose attached to the Oroton
aqueduct in bia hand with which ha was
watering the New York Central. These
towns are now all industriously initiating,
bucket and syringe in hand, the great
speculative land company that has finally
achieved q success at Birmingh am.
ARTIFICIAL VALUES.
Apropos Of that company, called the
Elyton Land Company, the owners OF
the site on which Birmingham is built,
its stock sold 40 low as 20 conts on tho
dollar in 1854, after the panic Of 1873
and the cholera struck the town. Now it
is quick sale ct $50 for one. In other
words, eyery. share OF 500 is readily mar.
keted at S. 900. II is a phenomenal sue.
coss not only in Alabama, bu. in the
country, and its success is what ails all
the Alsbsms towns referred to. They
oil expect the lightning to strike them the
same way without respect to tho great
difference in their conditions as com.
pared with Birmingham. 55
Alabama as State is not prosperous,
Too much poor land aud too many poor
people. Tho South generally is not pros
porous to-day with all that is said in the
papers about the "New South" Indeed
the agricultural interests OF the United
Stasc1, especially the West and South, are
not in prosperous condition. The crops
have not remunerated those who have
prCduced tnem on account OF low prices
ard partial failueas, Therefore the ao.call-
cd Alabaua boom is sporadic STAIR and
outside OF the immediate iron and ceal re-
gioa i5 largely fiction" e5si .,s:;.,5s-!-,